


silly girl

by leaxan



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 12:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20046208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leaxan/pseuds/leaxan
Summary: Is she really a Grey Warden? For all she knows, Elissa is just a silly little girl.





	silly girl

**Author's Note:**

> This is very boring and about five years old at this point. Originally written in russian, translated at 2 am. Just because i can. Did not mark it as a translation since im the author in both languages. Bares no meaning. 
> 
> If you notice any mistakes (which im sure there are plenty) do tell, i'll appreciate it.

“Is it time? Are we leaving?” Alistair mumbles in his sleep, and Elissa freezes instantly, afraid to make a sound. 

In a few seconds Alistair sighs, rolls over and murmurs something about some magnificent soup that Goldanna had made for dinner. His expression is almost childlike, blissful and happy, so rare to see on a Warden’s face. 

Yesterday he dreamt about the Archdemon, but today he is seeing his sister that is more likely to cook her own children than dine with Alistair, and Elissa feels almost sorry for him. She fights her desire to come closer, put her palm on his eyes and take away his nightmares. 

Before she is able to take a step towards him, however, she hears a loud and impatient croak outside. Elissa turns away and leaves the tent in haste. 

A dark early morning fills the camp with thick, heavy silence. Elissa hears almost nothing but the croaking bird and hurries towards the sound, holding her bow in a tight grip. Before they head out, everyone needs a good breakfast, and since she is the boss, she must provide.

Another croak and Elissa speeds up. Soon she is surrounded by trees, and she lifts her head trying to see the bird. She hears a pair of wide wings swishing instead. 

“Morrigan!” she calls, heading further into the forest. “If you won’t show up, I might shoot you for breakfast. No offence.”

“I doubt your aim is good enough”, Elissa hears behind her back. Morrigan is quiet, but her voice is deep and low. 

Elissa keeps down a nervous sigh, caused by either fear or awe, and finally turns her face to see Morrigan.

The witch smiles, and it is certainly a candid smile, not a smirk that everyone is used to seeing. Elissa tries her best to remember everything: these soft lips, a little mischievous spark on the very bottom of these eyes, a tiny dimple. 

Morrigan’s smile is a rarity. Even rarer when it’s genuine. 

“Managed to escape our prince?” Morrigan asks and her smile fades away in an instant. “What did you come up with this time?”

“He is asleep” Elissa shrugs. “And I wouldn’t have to. We are out of food, anyway”.

Elissa gets silent for a moment, holding so many words inside, but they always get the better of her. Morrigan probably knows every phrase by heart at this point.

“Morrigan, i… if you would have only told me. A word, or… anything. You know, i…”, Elissa is out of breath. She looks aside, trying to gather herself together. “I would do anything. Alistair doesn’t matter, no one matters. If you would have only gave me a sign…”

“Sh-h-h”, Morrigan gets closer, putting her thin pale finger on Elissa’s lips. It smells like herbs and lyrium. “You are silly, you know? Silly girl”.

Elissa knows. She is ready to admit anything, become anything, say or do anything to stop these slow, long, painful seconds before a kiss. Morrigan’s lips are soft. Soft, warm, and sometimes tender. Probably, Morrigan just pities Elissa the same way Elissa pities Alistair. 

If Morrigan is capable or pity at all.

“Tell me you’re…” Cousland gasps, breaking their kiss and tries to look Morrigan in the eye. A choice between “have feelings for me” and “love me” has not yet been made. “Tell me I mean something to you. Just a word, Morrigan... I’ll do anything…”

“I heard that already”, Morrigan whispers and takes Elissa’s burning face into her cold palms, “Keep quiet. Do you have the ring?”

Some time ago Morrigan gave a charmed ring to Elissa. Cousland had never once taken it off ever since. She treasured it like nothing else, and at the time of battle kept it on a chain under her shirt.  
So she just nods, keeping quiet.

“Good”, the witch says. “Good”.

And kisses Elissa again.

When Morrigan turns into a bird again and flings up into the watery dawn skies, Elissa stares at her longingly for some time. Alistair must be awake already and woke the whole camp up trying to set a fire, as usual.

Cousland picks a large deer that must have strayed away from the pack, knowing perfectly that she won’t be able to carry it to the camp. A few arrows can’t finish it off, so Elissa comes closer and uses her dagger. She thinks that Alistair would probably be terrified by how coldblooded she is, but for now while he is not around, she just wants to take her anger and despair out.

She leaves blood marks on some of the trees on her way back to the camp, so she can easily find the deer later. Sten, who is cleaning up his sword away from the tents is just who she needs.

“Care to help?” she asks loudly, and Sten understands her just by looking at the thick layer of blood covering her hands and sleeves.

“Lead on, kadan”, he says.

A strange qunari word means very little to her, but it feels satisfying to earn Sten’s respect. On their way through the forest Elissa hears the bird croak once again.

When they’re back, Alistair gives them a stare. He stares at Sten with a deer carcass on his shoulder, stares at Elissa covered in blood. He may be upset that he slept though the hunt, or maybe he wanted to help Cousland himself instead of Sten.

“I got this, kadan”, Sten says, throwing the carcass on the ground. “You wash your hands”.

Elissa smiles gratefully and heads to a small lake near the camp. She had no desire to bother with the deer anyway. Before she knows it, she hears Alistair’s steps behind.

“Could have woke me up”, he says, sounding almost sad. Elissa speeds up, trying to avoid looking at him.

“You know it’s pointless”, she answers, seeing water shine behind the trees. “You always liked Archdemon more than me”.

“Weird”, he replies in confusion. “Don’t remember dreaming any of that today”.

Elissa shrugs quietly and heads towards the lake. She doesn’t want to upset Alistair even more by mentioning his sister.

The water surface is clear and full of morning’s sunlight. Fallen leaves are floating around and Elissa sits down, staring at them. She puts her hands into the water and some leaves immediately stick to her wet skin.

“We can… stay here for a while”, says Alistair, sounding a little shy. He is watching Cousland washing the blood off her hands. “Sten said they will cook. The chantry wench and the elf will cook, to be precise”. 

“The chantry wench?” Elissa asks with a weak smile. “I’d have to talk to Sten about referring to Leliana this way”. 

Alistair giggles. When the sound fades away, they are both surrounded by silence. The kind of silence that is usually better than the words that are about to be said.

“I like it when you smile”, says Alistair softly.

Elissa lets out a sigh. Alistair had mastered the art of annoying her in the shortest time quite long ago, ever since she realized she is bound to him by pity. Moments like this, pity is the only feeling stopping her from telling him off. Sometimes, when Morrigan ignores her, Alistair is the only person able to give her the warmth she needs.

He painfully reminds her of her father, of Fergus, of Roderick. Of all the men she loved. But he misunderstands her. Of course, she loves him. She loves him, but she was never able to love him the way he wanted to be loved. She loves him and is scared of hurting him by pushing him away. She knows that if she does that, there is no way back.

She will break him.

Morrigan usually laughs if Elissa tries to explain herself. Morrigan knows well enough that she only needs to say a word and Cousland will no longer be afraid. She will stop pretending. She will run away and follow Morrigan anywhere.

Leave everything behind.

Elissa stopped suspecting that she was bewitched by Morrigan long ago. Any blood magic spell requires enough time and enough power, not to mention one that is able to last that long. It would drain even the most powerful mage and leave them with no strength. It’s not that she doubts Morrigan. But even Alistair with all of his templar experience hasn’t noticed anything strange yet. 

“What are you thinking about?” Alistair asks and Elissa suddenly realizes how close to each other they are. They sit at the very edge of the water, side by side, and she hesitates for a while before putting her head on his shoulder. 

It would have been perfect if he was her brother. Maybe, if she were to find all the right words that day when he visited her tent, mumbling something about being in love, everything would have been different. Better.

But she said what she said. So he kisses her hair, hugging her gently, and hums a little to remind her about his question.

“About what happens next”, she says, and she is not even lying. “You will become king, and then…”

“And then?” she feels his warm breath as he smiles into her hair.

“And then we will get married”, she says bluntly. She will have a lot on her plate, including her top priority: obliterating house Howe from the face of the earth.

Ruling a country will be difficult enough, so Elissa doesn’t want to rule Alistair as well. For that reason, she considers marriage to be the best option.

“Actually, it was my line”, Alistair says, “And it sounded quite different. There was something about, you know, will you marry me… or something like that”. 

“Spared us the time, then”, she replies and laughs softly to make up for her rudeness.

Alistair wants to hold her by the hand, and he almost does, but at the very last moment he suddenly jerks his hand away with a surprised sigh. Elissa looks at him in confusion and checks her own hand to see what happened.

“Your ring”, Alistair exclaims. “It burns. Where did you even get it from?”.

“It’s from an evil eye, Wynne gave it to me”, she lies quickly, not even thinking about Alistair being perfectly able to ask Wynne about the ring. “Does it burn, really?”

He nods, noticeably confused by the excitement in her voice. Elissa herself has never felt anything unusual touching the ring. Morrigan…

She sighs longingly, daydreaming about the witch. She has no idea they will only have a moment alone right before the final battle.

That night everyone feels strangely reserved and keeps to themselves. The castle is dark and quiet while Elissa walks hastily thorough the halls, holding her hands behind her head. She is trying to get a hold of her hair using a silk ribbon, but her fingers are shaking. 

Riordan said someone is going to die tomorrow.

It’d be just fine with her if that old psycho made it till the morning, she thinks cynically. She felt the blight inside him the moment they met. You cannot see this darkness, but it is impossible not to feel the death’s cold breath. Each of them is a walking corpse and rest is a matter of time.

She shuts the door to her chambers, turns towards the room, hands still behind her head, holding the ribbon in her mouth, and freezes instantly. 

“Let me help”, says Morrigan softly, getting closer. Elissa feels her knees getting weak and breathes heavily. “Must be hard to imagine, but Flemeth used to braid my hair”. 

“Morrigan…” Cousland whispers, while the witch steps behind her, running her hands though the golden locks of Ellisa’s hair. “You came”.

“Don’t be sentimental”, Morrigan answers, pressing her lips against the skin behind Elissa’s ear. “I’ll tell you why I came. All you need to do is listen quietly.”

“Anything”, Elissa gasps as Morrigan slowly moves her lips across Cousland’s neck. “Why didn’t you come earlier?”

The witch is silent. They both are. Morrigan carefully braids Elissa’s hair and ties the ribbon tightly.

And then Elissa listens.

“No one will die”, Morrigan finishes, but all Elissa hears is "lay with Alistair". And she is mad. At the witch, at Alistair, at herself.

She doesn’t even remember the moment she realized she is in love. Was it when they met? Or when Morrigan mockingly invited Elissa to her tent? Cousland remembers all too well how all of her throughs disappeared along with the air around her. 

Or was it when the witch gave her the ring? The ring…

“It burnt Alistair”, Elissa says quietly, lost in thoughts. “When he touched the ring. What is this spell?”

“At first I wanted to burn him to a crisp”, Morrigan smirks. “Changed my mind”. 

And Elissa laughs just not to cry.

When she stands before Alistair’s door, holding the tears back does not seem as easy. She wants to cry out of despair and her own stubbornness, just as when she was a child and Nan would refuse to read more than two fairytales for her to sleep. 

_Time to sleep,_ Nan would say.

_Don’t look for me after,_ said Morrigan.

The only reason Elissa agreed to that strange ritual is Alistair himself. She won’t be able to stop him in case he decides to be stupidly heroic at the very last moment. He once told her he would die for her, but she is not ready to accept the sacrifice. 

She inhales deeply, holds the air in her lungs for a moment while lifting her fist to knock. She doesn’t get to actually knock, since the door swings open.

“Elissa? What are you.. are you crying?” she can bet Alistair forgot why he wanted to leave his room at the first place. He pulls her closer, holding her shoulders and looks into her eyes with a genuine concern. She just leans towards him, letting him finally hug her.

Being in his arms, she does not want to cry any longer. 

“I saw Morrigan entering your chambers”, Alistair says. “What did you talk about?”

“I’ll tell you”, she promises. “Just give me a moment”.

“Hold me a while longer” is not said out loud. Elissa remembers how father would blow on her scraped knees when she was a kid. How Fergus once got in a fight with some arl’s son, so he won’t pull Elissa’s hair on purpose. How she and Roderick would run away from the castle to feed wild ducks at the lake. 

She wants someone to just solve her problems for her.

She will tell. She will tell Alistair about the ritual and even talk him into it. She is soon to become his queen. What would he do without her? 

And then, someday, she will run away. From the kingdom, from Alistair, from everyone. Morrigan can’t just disappear, so she can be found, with enough time. Elissa feels the ring on her finger and smiles, as if she got the confirmation of her thoughts. She steps backwards and looks Alistair in the eye. 

Morrigan laughed when Elissa, eager to argue, blurted that she does not want to share the witch with anyone. And then she said, “you cannot share something that isn’t yours”. And then she asked to bring Alistair into her chambers.

He will probably feel guilty. So Elissa must find all the right words this time, since the last time she failed. She feels the ring getting warm and suspects Morrigan is ears dropping. The ring always senses her presence.

Elissa will find her. Someday. After all, she is not that much of a silly girl.

“Did you wan to… tell me something?” Alistair says as Elissa remembers that he is still here. She shakes her head, mumbles “it doesn’t matter” and storms off. 

You cannot share something that isn’t yours. Elissa does not look back. She knows she can change her mind a thousand times during the night, but for now all she wants is a simple promise.

A promise that after everything is done, Morrigan and her will meet someday.


End file.
